Archive for the 'Chip Kelly' Tag Under 'USC' Category

Today is the last of our two-a-day USC opponent previews with help from a guest beat writer. We’ll take a break for Pac-12 Media Days before previewing the UCLA game early next week with Register colleague Joey Kaufman.

Todd McShay of Scouts Inc. projects “safety” Su’a Cravens to the Philadelphia Eagles at No. 19. That would mean back-to-back first-round Trojans for Chip Kelly, who took receiver Nelson Agholor with the 20th pick last week.

Here’s what McShay wrote about Cravens (ESPN Insider subscription required to see the entire mock draft):

McShay also has USC center Max Tuerk going to the Seattle Seahawks and Pete Carroll with the 32nd selection. It’s logical on several fronts, as McShay writes:

Of course, all of this should be taken with a gargantuan grain of salt – a boulder of salt, if such a thing exists. Even McShay describes the assignment as among his least favorite and concedes he hasn’t done full tape studies on any of the prospects in his initial ’16 mock.

Former USC receiver Nelson Agholor met with the Philadelphia media Friday after being the Eagles’ first-round pick the previous day. Here’s some of what Agholor had to say:

(on what the past 24 hours have been like for him)

“It’s been great. I got a chance to meet with Coach (Chip Kelly) before he made the decision to have me here. I really wanted to be in this place, with this coaching staff and with these people. Right now, I’m in a comfortable situation.”

(on whether he sensed the Eagles were interested in him)

“Honestly, it was something I wanted for myself. I know they’re going to do what they have to do in terms of evaluating everybody, but when I got here, I kind of evaluated the way they did things. I knew if I ended up with this organization, I wanted to resemble the way they do things.”

“I was telling people internally that there is always unexpected things that happen in the draft. When you looked through all the mock drafts, his name consistently came up in the first three, four or five picks in the draft. I kind of stressed with everybody throughout the process that you just try to build your board in a bubble. In essence, try to figure out the players from best to worst, and when you go through the process, you basically anticipate any possibilities that may happen at that point in time. When we were going through different scenarios, we kind of thought it was a bit of a long shot. But when it kind of presented itself, we basically went back to my simple philosophy, and that was to try to have as many good players in the organization as possible and get the best player available at that point in time, which is what we felt he was. He’s a very big, physically talented, very young player. He’s only 20 years old, won’t even be 21 until sometime in June. So we feel he has a very big upside and a lot of potential.”

Many NFL pundits were baffled when the Philadelphia Eagles selected Matt Barkley in the fourth round of the NFL Draft last month.

It's been widely assumed that Coach Chip Kelly will bring his read-option offense from Oregon to the Eagles -- even though he hasn't specifically said so -- and Barkley is far from a mobile quarterback.

USC coach Lane Kiffin said he wasn't surprised, though. Kiffin said that in the weeks leading up to the draft, Kelly and members of his staff did significant leg work on Barkley.

''I think it probably shocked a lot of people, obviously, from the assumption of what Chip was probably looking for at quarterback, a running guy,'' Kiffin said. ''But Chip talked about Matt early on, really early. We talked about him, and then he sent his quarterback coach out here, separately from Pro Day, to spend time with (Barkley). Then he come up here and spent some time with myself. At that point, I kind of felt that they were very serious. I thought, at first, that maybe it was just a smokescreen, like teams do, but Chip was very serious about it all along.''

And even though some of Barkley's pre-draft comments seemed critical of Kiffin and the way the coach handled USC's offense in 2012, Kiffin gave his best wishes to Barkley.

Fears that USC might not have a defensive coordinator in place before signing day appear to have been abated. The Trojans are expected to announce the hiring of Clancy Pendergast on Friday.

The pending announcement, as first reported by Bruce Feldman of CBS, is far from surprising. Pendergast, who most recently served as defensive coordinator at Cal, is the only known candidate to have formally interviewed with Coach Lane Kiffin, and reports of Pendergast's imminent hiring had swirled for days.

USC has been in search of a new defensive architect since Monte Kiffin resigned after the Sun Bowl.

It seems, though, that USC made one last move. The Oregonian reported Thursday that Oregon defensive coordinator Nick Aliotti turned down the same role at USC. Aliotti's situation at Oregon became unclear Wednesday when Coach Chip Kelly jumped to the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles.

Under Pendergast, Cal had the Pac-12's top defense in 2010 and 2011 -- in terms of total yards against -- and sent nine defensive players to the NFL, but slipped to 10th in 2012 with a young, rebuilt defense.

USC put more points (51) and yards (615) up against Oregon than any other opponent this season. It didn't lead to a USC victory but after the game, the Ducks spoke glowingly of the Trojans' offensive attack.

Oregon linebacker Michael Clay singled out quarterback Matt Barkley and receivers Marqise Lee and Robert Woods, and referred to the USC offense as a ``juggernaut,'' and Coach Chip Kelly had high praise as well.

``Matt Barkley and Andrew Luck are the two best quarterbacks I've faced, and Marqise Lee may be the best receiver I've had the opportunity to coach against,'' Kelly said. ``And Robert Woods and what he's done. It was an unbelievable battle for those guys.''